Re: Copying conditions

At 13:59 07/10/2004, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>   a. "IETF":  In the context of this document, the IETF includes all
>      individuals who participate in meetings, working groups, mailing
>      lists, functions and other activities which are organized or
>      initiated by ISOC, the IESG or the IAB under the general
>      designation of the Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF, but
>      solely to the extent of such participation.
>
>So this means that Simon Josefsson is allowed to exercise the rights Scott 
>quoted and incorporate the executable pieces into running code, but the 
>guy on the next desk, who isn't on any IETF mailing list, is not, even 
>though they work on the same project, for the same employer, under the 
>same laws. If he joins an IETF list (any IETF list), he's allowed to.

I wish we could read this this way. But I am embarassed by the "but 
_solely_ to the _extent_ of such _participation_". May not that mean that 
the third party must be on one of the IETF mailing list of the area of the 
matter he wants to quote, or that it must interact reasonably about it? Is 
a lurker having the same rights as a de facto co-author acting in a WG? 
Also, drafts are presented by WGs. Are the true authors the quoted authors 
or are the WG retaining parts of the rights? When a new concept is 
suggested by a WG member and aggregated to  someone's draft who is to give 
the authorization to quote it? This would also mean that subscribing to an 
open mailing list would modify legal rights, this registration should then 
be notarized in a way. Since many mail names can be used, there should be a 
IANA IETF Members list (there is a IANA Corporate list). When is a 
subscription ended - when I remove myself from the list or when I cease 
reading my mails?

In most of the cases there will not be any issue. But if someone starts 
objecting and suing someone else it will mean the case is worth it and 
lawyers will certainly discuss these points and many others. This would 
then have a brutal impact on the whole Internet standard process because 
unprepared.

For example, there is no IETF definition I am aware of for the term "domain 
name". There are many quotes of it in documents, contracts, legislations. 
Is someone claiming paternity of it, so I can ask him/her the permission to 
quote his description? I chose the term "domain name" on purpose because 
most of its use today in the world is now in relation to DNS. And many 
processes are carried which use the term in a different meaning than the 
RFCs. Would not the IETF's attitude about this key and core term make 
jurisprudence in case someone object for a less important term?

jfc 

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